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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 08 Hansard (Thursday, 5 August 2004) . . Page.. 3497 ..

committee’s response on 11 December 2003, noting the recommendation without supposedly being aware of the problems. I find that incredible. Later that day, 11 December 2003, Ms Gallagher claimed that the department advised her of the problems by fax. She did not correct the record in the Assembly, as the ministerial code of conduct requires, but told the Chief Minister a month later. They commissioned the Vardon committee and finally told the public, after numerous occasions. As the chronology in the Vardon report states quite clearly, they would have known time and time again.

On 6 February, the Chief Minister received an interim report from Commissioner Vardon indicating that the failure to report claims was the tip of the iceberg of the problems with family services. The chief executive of the Department of Education, Youth and Family Services, Ms Fran Hinton, and the executive director of family services were stood aside pending the full review of Commissioner Vardon. In late March, Ms Vardon asked for an extension until 7 May 2004. It is already clear that three ministers have serious questions to answer—Mr Stanhope, Ms Gallagher and Mr Corbell.

The ACT government announced that it had set aside $1.8 million from the Treasurer’s Advance to set up an audit team. As at 6 April this advance had not been spent—further evidence of Labor’s lethargy on this issue. Fair dinkum! The ACT government received the Vardon report in May. However, its response had not been before cabinet. A copy of the Vardon report was leaked to the media on 18 May 2004, leading Jon Stanhope to declare that he would hold a formal inquiry—one that never really was that formal, from what we have heard the Chief Minister say. So that leaves us to wonder—“leaked”! Interesting! The Vardon report and the government response were finally released on 25 May 2004. It goes on.

Indeed, carers have been on the front line of all of this. Carers are the people being caught in the crossfire because this minister is not standing up strongly and leading her department in the way she should. Heads have to roll. Heads should have rolled. It is not about having heads on sticks; it is about ministerial accountability, responsibility and leadership. How can the department have any confidence in this minister and in this government? How can they be expected to perform when there are still people within the system who were the cause of the problems? “Let’s move the problem sideways” seems to be a classic with this government. I think it is absolutely irresponsible to expect a department to function while people at the head of it are not functioning and performing themselves.

Jon Stanhope, in his media release of 25 May 2004, claimed there was no crisis in child protection. That begs the question: why is the government spending an additional $70 million over four years on child protection if there was no crisis? I have said and will say again that throwing money is not going to change a culture. The minister denies that there was an arrogant or indeed a bad culture in family services; yet in her own words she says, “Things are being improved or implemented to create a new culture.” Interesting!

What is of even more concern is that there will be months of delay in the implementation of the 47 recommendations in the report, with the implementation committee that has now been formed. Given this government’s record of delaying a decision, it is unlikely that major and substantial progress will be made before the election. I have to commend

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